Stockholm at night
by witchfingers
Summary: Tina couldn't for the life of her make sense of that one man down the hall. /SuF!Fin/


_Dedicated to my sister, that beta'ed it like a trillion times._

* * *

**Stockholm at night**  
_Stockholm i natt_

* * *

Tina couldn't for the life of her make sense of that one man down the hall. She saw him only very rarely and at strange times of the day too, and for all that she'd chatted up the entire apartment building, he was; first, a mystery, second, kind of creepy and kind of stern. To honor the sacred virtue of honesty, she'd blushed in glee like a high-school girl the first time she saw him step out of the elevator impressive as he was, tall, broad-shouldered and handsome. But then he'd cryptically answered her _Good morning!_ with a grave nod of the head and hey, why should anyone be so unrelaxed at barely 6.30 am? Figures, her luck- maybe he just didn't like her. He'd fixed his thin-rimmed glasses over the slim bridge of his nose and brushed past her, and he might have mumbled a response but she wasn't sure. She was only disappointed he'd not wanted to make some small, _friendly_ conversation.

(well, Swedes were reserved like that, she was learning)

Tina had this little cute fluffball she'd fished up from a dumpster a week or two after she'd just arrived at Stockholm, and she'd named it a flamboyant foreign name she'd Google-translated on the spur of the moment. The thing had been more lucky with her stoic neighbor than she herself had been, as she'd found out one night well past midnight as she stood smoking in the corridor (with blatant disregard for the no-smoking sign evidently displayed next to the fire-extinguisher)- she was fooling around with the size of the puffs of smoke, probably also intoxicating her pet (but she'd found the thing in a dumpster, it was tough), and then the elevator's ominous metal doors had slid to reveal that one silent neighbor of hers (that wore clothes so dark that time that he only managed to create a halo of black around him). He'd walked to his apartment too lost in thought to notice her, and she frowned (it was Friday night) and her cute little pet had run after him leaving her alone in her cloud of smoke-

-and her neighbor was already too much into the shadows of the end of the corridor for her to see him but he crouched and indulged the little furry creature slightly, earning himself a merry yap too loud for that hour- and he'd looked at Tina, who had been (reluctantly…?) observing the ordeal and who, caught by surprise, could only blank and wave cheerfully at the (impressive) neighbor that was also a pointed stranger and she'd blushed at her stupidity; but thankfully it was too dark for him to see her.

"Ey Hanatamago," she'd said, "come back, don't be a nuisance-" and the pet had trotted back to its master proud of the situation, but Tina was frowning for a reason she couldn't understand, and then she'd gone back into her apartment and crushed what was left of the cigarette on the kitchen sink.

.

Sometimes she thought about that man down the corridor, but not too often.

.

Winter was strange and moist in the capital city as it wasn't ever in her quiet hometown in Lapland, silence hung doubtful behind the traffic noises and the days lasted way too short, Tina felt, and snow looked far too dirty to be inviting. Still, the streets were quaint and the houses neat and pleasant in her neighborhood, and, returning home one Saturday evening (at four pm), a flock of wild geese flew overhead, betraying the presence of the lakes not too far from the city. A car drove by. She carried her groceries on one arm and a handful of books on the other, thinking if Doyle or Christie or Mankell would be better for that night after supper and wishing she did have a fireplace (like back home), because there was nothing like the scent of burnt wood and ash and hot cocoa,

and what was she thinking? Getting all home-sickly in the middle of the streets of a city that'd become home already two years ago.

.

The night was rightfully polar and darkest despite the moon, and Tina listened to some soothing piano instrumental music, while she waited for the water to boil. For the coffee. Coffee would be nice, for all that the world was so silent and icy and Scandinavian. Stockholm slept there beyond the frozen window panes, and yellow lights pierced the black nautical air outside.

And it smelled like wet pavement even inside her room.

She fished for her cigarettes. Empty space and night air, and was she really all out of Marlboros? Well, perkele, and she threw on a coat or two and a long scarf and pocketed some money and went out.

And out it was night and vacant and yellow light against black sky, and it smelled like wet pavement. The store was open.

.

When she came back, her neighbor sat on the entrance steps, and Tina was happy that the air that night reminded her of home, and she was just naturally a kindred spirit, and she looked at him,

"Are you alright?"

He looked up at her and nodded, pensive. "Yes. I'm fine."

"What are you doing outside? Forgot your keys?"

He shook his head. "I'm thinking."

She shrugged. "It's empty tonight." Not that she was making small talk. She was stating an evident atmospheric condition. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. Now both of them gazed at the solitary street, at the game of contrasts between the glow of the street lights and the silence that oozed from the snow piled at the sides of the pavement.

"I'm Tina, by the way. Your neighbor from down the corridor."

Once again, he nodded. And now, now she _was_ making small talk. Because it was somehow not as depressing to be talking to the man as it was going back home to instant coffee and monotonous piano music.

"I know. I'm Sven. Pleasure t' meet you."

It made Tina feel funny because he had a voice very deep, like an echo in a cavern; a very beautiful voice (that matched him) and it was the most she'd heard him speak for all the time they'd crossed in the corridor or hall or elevator; and because he'd just said the kind of formula that goes with a tight handshake and maybe even a smile, but he remained there, stoic and sitting and lost in contemplation, and Tina wondered aloud:

"Oh, I am bothering you, aren't I? I'm sorry..."

"No," he said slowly, "It's a pleasure t' meet you." Even if the words he'd used were the same, he'd not just said to her quite the same twice, and she was intrigued, and his words sounded strange because his voice was so deep, sometimes the last letters of what he said she couldn't make out.

"Well, likewise!" she said with more animation that such a night would evoke in anyone, but her social skills kicked in, and Sven's good looks didn't hurt, and he'd just practically encouraged her to speak, had he not?

"I was out of cigarettes so I had to go buy some. Do you mind if I smoke?"

He shook his head.

"Do you want one?"

He shook his head again, but she was smiling in content when she lit the Marlboro and placed it between her lips, and took a seat next to him, feeling perhaps more comfortable than she was entitled to with someone she hardly knew. And, in other circumstances, she might have found someone like him intimidating, but she couldn't find him intimidating now because he spoke so little and he didn't make eye contact with her, but under his thin-rimmed glasses a blush was set on his cheeks and Tina could kind of read it,

and she, for all that she could comprehend body language, guessed he was slightly embarrassed.

And that was universally too cute to ever make him intimidating.

"What were you thinking about?"

Was that too forward? Tina bit her lip- "Sorry, I don't mean to be nosy. But you looked so…"

Miserable? Confused?

"…sad."

He half-buried his face in his scarf (blue and yellow, the colors somehow suited him very well), sighing, or sort of, shook his head for the thousandth time.

"Work."

"Work?"

"I may quit."

"…really?"

"It's stressing."

"Come now, Sve!", she said, patting his shoulder as if they were acquainted, "If it's work only, you'll figure it out, I'm sure! But it can't be good for your health to be sitting here in the cold like this," her tone of voice became confidential, or so she regarded it, "I was about to make some coffee. It's instant coffee, but it's better than none. Want some?"

The wind brought her his scent as he shifted and briefly looked at her, and she reveled in that he smelled like wood and ashes.

.

His last name was Östenstjärna and he'd lived for many years in that apartment down the hall, he liked to go fishing and he had a little boat, and he was all in all a mystery because that was all Tina had learnt of his private life after talking four hours with him. In the end she'd stirred up two good cups of coffee and brought them down to the stone steps in the entrance of the building (it wasn't so cold if you were animatedly chatting with someone and, besides, both of them were dressed like for a polar adventure and, besides, it _was_ an enchanting night), and, it was puzzling, because even if he'd smiled at her a rare brief smile when she wished him goodnight, it had been 3 am and she'd still not known what it was he'd been so mournfully thinking about when she'd first talked to him.

.

She'd not really minded much that the hairdresser cut her hair way shorter than she'd meant her to, because it framed her face in a boyish way that did not displease her, and, besides, it felt much more comfortable to wear a scarf now.

.

"Lower your voice…"

"You'd LIKE!"

She was woken up at an unholy hour by shouting by the elevator across her door and she was about to go and complain, when she reckoned one of the voices belonged to her neighbor, who she'd not seen since they'd talked that frosty late night.

She shouldn't have but she peered from the keyhole and a blond man, wearing black and red and a scowl, was pointing his finger at a very cool-looking Sven. She could recognize the man, a public figure of some sort. Danish accent. He bellowed again at her neighbor,

"You go damn CIA again on my ass and you'll _hear_ of me, you can bet on that…!" And he rambled on until the elevator came and she heard the doors open, and all the while Sven had tried to get the man not to talk _.loud_.

But that was how Tina found out that Sven worked for the secret service. And she wasn't surprised.

Or, well. Maybe only a little.

…

But not too much.

.

Winter wore away and she felt so weird in a t-shirt, and also for all that she was flat-chested she had trouble finding herself when she passed by a mirror with that strange lankiness the short hair gave her. Not that she minded it much, but it was still fantastically displacing.

.

He was going out when she was coming in, and the beam that glowed on her face surged from inside.

"Sve!" she called, and he seemed surprised.

"It's been long since I saw you around! How've you been doing?"

He was taken aback only shortly, he answered her shortly, too: "Working." A pause. "You?"

"Working!" she said too, and he was wearing a blue t-shirt and looking _fantastic_ and underslept. "Could you solve that problem you had last time?"

He mmmh-ed. "Kind of."

Because it was somehow unexplainably normal that they should speak that friendly when they had not seen, even crossed each other for a month or more.

"Well, that's…" _great, awesome_, "fantastic!" It was not just a strange choice of words. It was her subconscious teasing her. Fine, let it have its way.

"Are you doing anything t'day?"

He spoke so low and so rushed and so looking elsewhere in what could be embarrassment, that Tina could only space out and ask,

"…sorry…?"

"N'vermind," he said fast and began to walk away, but Tina, bewildered and _had she just heard what she'd thought she'd heard_, went after him, saying, "Hey, Sve! …wait! I honestly didn't hear you!"

Her neighbor didn't turn round to face her so she swirled round him instead, and an interesting blush was set on his cheeks as he looked stern as always, and she just guessed she had heard right after all; and she beamed,

"You just asked me out, didn't you?" It was beyond understanding how she thought that could make him any less embarrassed, but she didn't let him dwell on that, "That's great! I mean, it's a great idea! … I mean, no, I'm not really doing anything today!"

Slowly, he smiled. "That's… good."

.

It was very late and very dark, and the water puddles left by the last rain shimmered yellow and quaint under the loving streetlight, and Tina might have been only slightly tipsy (with her cheeks rosy and this sudden new urge to laugh under her breath), and her amicably companionable neighbor Sve was only slightly flushed as well, but for another reason. The street was empty, and a rainbow of hues of neon danced on the wet pavement, and Tina had her arm wrapped around his arm and she was telling her of her home, in some small country town, in some unreachable Finnish province.

"If you miss home, why don't you visit?" He asked quietly, marveling like he always did in the curve of her perfect little nose and her breath-taking eyes, of a color so intense that it shouldn't even be possible.

She frowned and he didn't like that, and she sighed, "It's not the best moment," (she wasn't laughing any more, and Sven thought he might have asked a wrong question)… "Maybe in a year, or two, or ten…"

He frowned.

"… but I'm good here now," she perked up, "Much better since tonight…" (even if they'd only had something to drink and hours to talk-)

He felt he was blushing like a goddamned teenager.

"…I'm glad."

She smiled back at him, and it felt nice to know she understood _he_ was also smiling, because his face was always so hard (for strangers) to read.

.

It was an American, that time, pounding loudly on someone's door down the corridor and Tina just _knew_ whose door it was before the man called, loud and accented and dowdy and, her mind complained, _inaccurately_,

"Hey, Oxenstierna! Open up, you creeper! You got some serious business with me, hey!"

She was greatly bothered and only slightly intrigued, and she slipped on a pullover over her man-cut pajamas and opened the door ajar.

"Östenstjärna," Sve's voice corrected stern and quiet, and the stranger just drawled,

"What_ever_, jeez, what did I just say? Anyway," a loud groan, "You, man! The heck you think you're doing? You're gonna _ruin_ me, man!" A curse.

Her neighbor looked at the man stern and steady. "I'm doing m' job," he replied even and low, and Tina only heard because it was so late and so silent in the building, "Complain t' the government. Or play fair." He shrugged. "Y'r choice."

The American was flashy and very evident, and Tina saw him huff and gesticulate in frustration and damn the Swede, and walk towards the elevator, and she quickly shut her door closed.

Minutes dragged in silence and she stood with her back to the door, looking out the window to the frozen street outside, lost in thought, and somewhere along the way she might have wondered what time it was.

Discreet rapping on the wood behind her made her jump up in disoriented disconcert. She yipped, in surprise.

"Y-yeah…?" she answered uncertainly.

"Open up, T'na."

Sve's voice shocked her. She opened the door to come face to face with him.

"Not nice t' eav'sdrop, y' know."

He didn't look pleased, at all, she gulped, and he was speaking low and intincate.

"I… I know, uh, ehm… It was just that… you see, that guy was so loud, I thought there was something going on, and then I, ugh…"

He sighed.

"What time is it?" she finally asked, cheeks flushed up in embarrassed distraught. Because she'd just horribly intruded in his privacy, even if his partner in conversation had probably succeeded to wake up the whole floor.

"Almost two." Am. Of a Thursday…. she _was_ in her right to worry, wasn't she…?

"You've gotta tell your friends that watches never killed anyone…" she began, but a look of blatant intolerance for that kind of conversation made her fall silent. It was probably the first time Sve looked at her like that, and she honestly didn't like it, and she suddenly felt like closing the door in his very noses.

But she didn't.

"I'll make myself a cup of tea. Want one?"

.

silence. The blinds were drawn and, outside, the night was black and yellow and unforgiving.

.

"Look, um, Sve, I know you're secret service. A Dane was yelling it in the corridor some other night."

Better deal with it fast and sudden, she thought as his eyebrow quirked ever so slightly, and she thought it was just not fair that mistrust crept again into her life, when she'd been running away from it from Lapland all the way over to Sweden.

And Sven was keeping silent.

"… but don't think it means anything to me," she fidgeted, (and he wasn't meeting her eyes either) "I don't know what you do for real, and I, eh, it's not like I'm going to go around posting it in Twitter or whatever." She paused, not really sure if he was paying attention to her or if her words were having any actual weight of persuasion, "I, ehm… You can trust me, you see. Your secret's safe with me…"

He looked up from the cup of coffee and his eyes were only just so _intense_ that it was she the one that had to look away now, sudden blush set on her cheeks. But she didn't know for real what made her feel embarrassed like that.

In another apartment, a cuckoo clock sang three times, faded.

"I trust you," he said simply. But he was not ready to word _why_ he trusted her so easily. So he just looked at her as fondly as he could, doubting that it was a look she'd understand, anyway, and stood up.

"It's late. Thanks for the coffee."

.

"Hey, Sve… wait…"

.

He turned round but she was at a loss for words mentally scolding herself, _you silly, what's your problem?_

"Uh, no… nothing, it's nothing. Good night."

.

He smiled privately, but Tina had never seen him smile like that and she liked it very much, even more when he took a couple of steps towards her and affectionately brushed his thumb against her cheek. It was is if she'd never taken notice before of how tall, not to say majestic, her neighbor was.

He kissed her forehead.

"Good night, Tina."

(she saw him leave and beamed. _Tina_, she thought fondly, _you're an idiot._)

.

Her dog by her heels, she rapped on his door gently the following morning, but there was no one home.

.

The week went by slowly, achingly slowly, and Tina skipped from her apartment to her job and back in some sort of anxious trance. She drank twice as much coffee as she did ordinarily, and dreamt of her neighbor every night. What a mysterious man.

What a wonderful, loveable mysterious man.

A man that was not at home either when she knocked again on his door that Friday evening, and she went back to her apartment feeling sullen and cranky; and she downed more than half of her best bottle of vodka and went to bed early.

.

The morning sun rose too early that day and she'd forgotten to close the blinds again, and her head wanted to implode so bad from her lamentable hangover when she threw on a coat or something and went to open the door, who was knocking so damn loud anyway? On a Saturday morning?

She looked like a mountain troll, or so she vaguely supposed at least, dark rings under her eyes and her hair ungodly tousled, but when she opened the door and Sven took in her sight, all he did was sort of laugh under his breath.

(And that was a good way to start the day.)

.

It was very cold but it wasn't the dead of night, only later that morning when they sat together in silence in a beach somewhere between Norrtälje and Östhammar, not much more than an hour's drive from the still sleeping Stockholm, thousands of years away from the yellow lights and dirty snow piled by the grey streets. She'd seen Sven pack a sportish rod and fishing supplies, and actually that had been the excuse to go there, but he'd not really paid any heed to those things and they lay forgotten in the trunk, the car neatly parked under eons-old pinetrees.

The sun was warming and it was almost midday, and Tina thought privately how great an outing that was, and how godly Sve looked under the sun- fresh, strong, imposing- and how well rested his face looked (godly, had she already said that?) and how slim his hands seemed as they twirled (liquid, almost) around a length of dried kelp.

She herself toyed with a whitewashed broken clam. The thermos with coffee was half-buried in sand to keep it upright, next to a bag of cookies they hadn't opened yet, and a seagull eyed them with clear voracious intent. Tina laughed.

"There's nothing for you here, shoo!"

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Sve crack a smile. One of those wonderful, hidden smiles of his. She wondered if people knew he was smiling at all when he did that, but by the heavens she liked it.

She did. She did.

She _did_, and too much.

.

"They're laughing at me down there, I swear!" she said in frustration, absolutely absorbed, "They'll see! I'll _make_ them bite that damned bait! Just wait me a minute, Sve… you'll see…"

"If you lash at them…" he began to say fondly, but then again he was too amused to go on, seeing the woman try with all her might not to lose her temper to the great body of water that was the sea of Åland.

Teaching her to fish? Greatest idea he'd ever had, honestly. Greatest fun in months, too.

"Hiding? HIDING? I'll show you hiding, you god damned fish!"

He liked her so much. Even more if she shouted at the unsuspecting underwater fauna like that, because it reminded him that they were in a beach alone from civilization and there he was not Sven Östenstjärna, KSI officer extraordinaire, just himself, a man that loved a (wonderful) (slightly mad) (cute)

(…very cute…)

(downright amazing)

woman.

He gently took the fishing rod out of her grasp, right before she hurled it in annoyance at the dancing waves.

"Maybe you scared th'm away," he commented, his flat tone not succeeding in masking his sarcasm.

She huffed. "Just pass me the coffee and I'll recover. But they won't get it that easy. I'll be returning for revenge, Sve. You're my witness here."

He might have chuckled, but he was sure she'd not heard him. "I'm sure you will," he said. Again, not without sarcasm.

"You bet, but you do know you're coming with me when I do, right?" she asked, her mood sociable once again as she took a cigarette out of her pocket.

"I'm sure I will," he told her simply (fondly, he couldn't help it), and she frowned before lighting the cigarette and pocketed it again. He gave her an amused, questioning look.

"I'd just feel guilty if I spoiled the air here," she said with a sheepish smile, "Wouldn't you?"

Again, could she tell he was smiling? "Don't smoke."

"Rethorical," she voiced absentmindedly, as she poured herself a cup of coffee, only then noticing how fast the day had gone by and how the sun was sinking already. If she put her imagination to work, she could imagine her homeland beyond the Baltic tingeing with sundown reds.

Companionable silence settled between them, and she came to sit next to Sve on the cool sand.

"We could be something," Sve said.

Suddenly, unpredictably, breaking the silence like a cracking eggshell- subtle but definitive. And although the waves kept rolling tamely against the beach and the wind still sang in the forest behind them, every sound had changed completely.

Tina beamed.

"We could, right?" she breathed, "…so… Sve… that means I can deal with the next idiot that comes knocking at your door at unholy hours, huh? Kick their asses to next week?"

"…'ll be offended if you don't."

* * *

THE END

* * *

Awwww… snif.

This fic's been sitting in my PC for MONTHS (we were good friends already). But I made myself finish it for Sweden's (one-day-belated) birthday :)

Sve and spies and kelp. O Gott. I may faint from the sexyness X_X

I started writing it inspired by the song "Från och med du", by Oskar Linnros.

As for the research:

**KSI =** "**Kontoret för Särskild Inhämtning**" _Office for Special Collection:_ says Wikipedia: "_handles HUMINT and espionage. Little is known about KSI, as it is only mentioned once in Swedish law."_ There you go, guys. Secreter than secret, that's why so little of Sve's job is mentioned around ;)

**On Sweden's name: **

- I think "Sven" means man in Swedish. Anyhow, it makes more sense that he'd be called "Sve" (that sounds super sexy and kickass) by ppl if his name is Sven and not BERWALD (nothing against people named like that, but add it to his utter awkward lack of social skills and you get some sort of mountain troll. Totally not happening in my story!)

- Östenstjärna: I know, you're thinking, "THA HELL WOMAN YOU RAPED HIS NAME". No, guys! Compare- Oxenstierna and Östenstjärna. There's a difference in that Östenstjärna is Swedish and means "eastern star", and the other one is weird to write and doesn't mean anything. (I know it comes from the last name of some famous person, but !)

I don't know. Pick your allegiance. I'm with Sven Östenstjärna all the way :P


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